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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28391544">So Far Away</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alltheshrinks/pseuds/Alltheshrinks'>Alltheshrinks</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Infidelity Verse [16]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, F/M, Homophobia, Infidelity, M/M, Religious Guilt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:01:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,009</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28391544</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alltheshrinks/pseuds/Alltheshrinks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen bumps into Jared’s mom at the store. </p><p>Song is So Far Away by Avenged Sevenfold.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jake Abel/Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles/OFC</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Infidelity Verse [16]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1886815</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>So Far Away</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>All of these verses are stand alone and can be read separately, though it is helpful to read the others. The only thing you need to know is that J2 are married to other people, but have had an on again, off again relationship for almost their entire adult life.</p><p>Comments make me insanely happy, I love engaging with all of you. Follow me over on Twitter @tltm78</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Jensen hates grocery shopping with a passion, it is probably one of his least favorite activities on the planet, especially when he has to take a four-year-old J.T. with him; This close to Christmas, he hates it to the nth power, but Ella isn’t feeling well, so he considers it penance for all of the crap he does wrong the rest of the year. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>J.T. Is determined to walk and considering how much he gets away from Jensen normally, he is prepared to bribe his son with whatever he wants as long as he rides in the shopping cart. The young boy finally acquiesces but has to sit in the basket part of the cart instead of the front, where he is supposed to sit. Jensen has learned in the past two years to pick his battles because his young son has such a fiercely independent streak that it tries every ounce of patience that Jensen has.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jensen is looking over his wife’s shopping list, written neatly in her rounded script, and trying his best to not pull his hair out at all of the customers packed into this store. Jensen would rather pay more and go to a less crowded store, but Ella has things on the list that he can only find at a supermarket like the one he is currently in. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He rounds the corner out of the bakery and into the organic foods aisle when a familiar face, also pushing a shopping cart comes from the opposite end. For a split second, Jensen wonders if maybe she won’t recognize him, but that flies out the window when the well-dressed and immaculately groomed Linda Padalecki, Jared’s mother, pushes her cart quicker with a smile on her face. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh my goodness, Jensen, look at you,” the woman beams, pulling him into her arms. Her expensive vanilla perfume assaulting his senses as she hugs him with-in an inch of his life. “And look here,” she forgets about Jensen for a second as she leans closer to the little boy in the cart who gives her the same look that he gave her son a few days ago. “He looks just like you at that age, I can still see you and J.T. Playing in a shopping cart as plain as day. How old are you?” She asks fondly, not at all put off at the skeptical look on the younger Ackles’ face. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Tyler’s four,” Jensen answers for his son when it becomes clear he is not going to be forthcoming. “He’s really bashful,” Jensen explains. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Just a little older than Eli,” Linda says. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We actually saw him and Jake the other night over at Christmas Village,” Jensen answers. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Jared didn’t tell me that.” She looks at him thoughtfully, like she is trying to figure something out. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How is your family, Jensen? Your mom and dad okay?” She sounds extremely sad and Jensen’s heart nearly splits into a thousand pieces. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The only thing that Jensen Ackles hates worse than being at home for part of the summer, is having to go to church with his family while he is there. He’s twenty-two, with a year of college left, but his parents still treat him like he is five. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He had overslept this morning and rushed through a shower and shaving so he could make it on time, but his hangover is still pounding in his head like the speakers from Chris and Steve’s show last night. His old high school friends have been playing in bars all summer, trying to get noticed so they can get a record deal and last night they played at a neighboring county’s fair. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Mackenzie is seated on the edge of the pew when Jensen creeps up the aisle and scoots her over. She has a bright white ribbing tying back her blonde hair that is hanging in one perfect spiral down the back of her head. She glares at him, the choir still singing the opening hymn to start the services. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Jensen sits, his pressed dress pants and button down shirt making him look like the perfect minister’s son that everyone thinks he is.  He can handle the hour long sermon and then beg off lunch from whatever member of the congregation wins the right to take Reverend Ackles and his family out. Then he is going to sleep for the rest of the day. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The song ends and his father takes the pulpit, saying his thanks to the members for the lovely song and says hello to all of the smiling faces of what he calls his church family. Jensen has heard his father preach so many times that he could probably deliver the sermon himself, but he still sits up straight and pretends to be engrossed in scripture that Jensen also knows intimately. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The audience gets extremely quiet however, when Reverend John Ackles instructs them to turn their Bibles to the Old Testament, way back to Leviticus and starts reading about how sinful it is for a man to lie with another man, as if he is a woman.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Jensen wills his nerves down, the alcohol from the night before has left him tired and too big for his skin as he listens to his father’s boisterous, commanding voice as he recites the word of the Lord. About how anyone who sees another man in his nakedness is unclean and must be put to death. Jensen swallows hard, trying not to react. He is too sick to listen to what his father is saying, but petrified of not hearing every word as the man at the pulpit slams his open palm of his hand down again and again on the wood of the podium. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Jensen feels a cold sweat break out on his temples as all of the hair at the back up his neck stands at attention, his fists are clenched so tightly that his short nails are leaving half-moon indentations that are close to breaking the skin of his palms. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The Reverend urges the members of the flock to turn their Bibles to Genesis, where he talks about Lot and how God destroyed the Sodomites for their wicked ways and how his wife was turned into a pillar of salt for just looking back at the smiting. He preaches about how people who turn a blind eye and just look on people who live that lifestyle will be destroyed by the Lord. Jensen’s tongue in his dry mouth has grown three sizes and he can hardly breathe. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Once the alter call goes out, lasting much longer than it normally does, with the preacher beseeching his crowd of followers to please come forth and ask the heavenly father to forgive them, to renounce their sinful ways and repent, Jensen is so rung out that he wants to run from the building. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Olivia gathers him and Mac up to join John at the doors to the sanctuary, to shake hands with everyone as they leave the building. They are almost to the doors when she tugs on her son’s arm, “Jensen, you look peaked, what’s wrong?” She places a hand on his forehead and then his cheek, “You are burning up.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Jensen tries not to flinch away from his mother’s touch, not wanting her to look at him for fear that she may turn to a pile of sodium nitrite right before his eyes. “I don’t know, I don’t feel well.” He manages to say to his mother while she digs in her purse for peppermint. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Olivia finally sends him home, telling him that they will be home after lunch and to call her if he isn’t feeling any better. “There is Pepto in the bathroom and some Tylenol there as well,” she informs him, like any medication will soothe his sick and painful soul. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Jensen returns home, taking off his good clothes to slip under the covers and sob quietly to himself, all thoughts of sleep are now gone and Jensen just wants to disappear. He longs for California and the safe haven that it represents.  He falls asleep sometime before his family returns, exhausted and wrung out. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>That Monday was better, he woke up to the sun shining and the birds singing, he promised his dad that he would mow the yard and gets to work on it as soon as he can; the manual labor and the sunshine helping him to forget about his dad’s sermon and how wrong what he and Jared were doing was. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It is mid-afternoon when he finally gets done trimming the hedges and weed eating, the yard looks better than it has since he left for college. He comes in the kitchen door, ready for some water or lemonade before he showers for dinner. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>His mom is talking in the living room, must be her ladies auxiliary group from the church meeting at their house today. He gets out a bottle of water and nearly drops it when he picks up snatches of the conversation. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Jared is such a nice boy, too. I just don’t understand why he would want to throw his life away by being with a man.” Jensen is sure that the voice belongs to Mrs. Clay from next door, his heart nearly thudding out of his chest at the words. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I know, it is heartbreaking. John had no choice but to tell the Padalecki’s if they were going to be okay with their son being so blantantly homosexual, that they were no longer welcomed in the church,” that is his mother, her voice sounding sympathetic, but firm. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“What does Jensen have to say about it, they were very close growing up?” Mrs. Danvers from across the street chimes in. “You don’t think it has to do with California do you? I mean, I never remember Jared ever acting like that until he moved out there.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Jensen feels sick, they are talking about the person he loves more than anyone on the planet as if he is a criminal, who maybe stole or murdered someone and not just liked people of the same sex. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Jensen doesn’t talk about Jared much anymore, he is busy with school and his girlfriend, I’m expecting that they will be getting married after he graduates next year.” That’s his mom again. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“It’s probably for the best that he and Jared aren’t close anymore, he is probably feeling like he has been lied to all these years, think about how much time they spent together,” Mrs. Danvers says and Jensen has heard enough. He ascends the steps quietly and strips down before stepping into the shower, the hot water nearly scalding him as he rubs nearly a layer of dermis off trying to get clean. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“They are doing okay, ma’am,” Jensen answers, feeling. just as sad as Linda sounds. “How are you all doing?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We are good,” she pats his hand that is resting on the shopping cart, “Jared says that you two stay in touch and I can’t tell you how glad that I am about that.” Linda looks like she wants to say more, but doesn’t. She just pats his hand and then J.T.’s blonde head. “Come by and see us soon, bring your wife. I’d love to meet her.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jensen is speechless, no matter what his parent’s think, Jared is the best thing that has ever happened to him and Jensen gets the feeling that if Jared’s family found out about the two of them, they would support them. Maybe not the infidelity, but in the end, they would continue to love them both. “It was good to see you,” Jensen says and absolutely means it, “We will try and stop by soon.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Linda gives him one last fond smile and says goodbye. He watches her push her grocery cart around the corner and thinks for probably the thousandth time of his adult life, why he couldn’t have had parents like Jared’s. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Everything he has ever wanted seems so close, but at the same time so far away.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p>
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